David Servan-Schreiber


David Servan-Schreiber was a French physician, neuroscientist and author. He was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He was also a lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine of Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1.

Life and career

Servan-Schreiber was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, the eldest son of French journalist and politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. He became co-founder and then director of the Centre for Integrative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Following his volunteer activity as a physician in Iraq in 1991, he was one of the founders of the US branch of Médecins Sans Frontières, the international organization that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. He also served as volunteer in Guatemala, Kurdistan, Tajikistan, India and Kosovo.
In 2002 he was awarded the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Society Presidential Award for Outstanding Career in Psychiatry. He is the author of Healing Without Freud or Prozac, and in which he discloses his own diagnosis with a malignant brain tumor at the age of 31 and the treatment programme that he put together to help himself beyond his surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
He was also a regular columnist for Ode magazine and other publications.

Later life and death

Having been treated twice for a malignant brain tumor, Servan-Schreiber became a leading figure in his engagement for integrative approaches to the prevention and treatment of cancer. He popularized his knowledge through teaching seminars, lectures, books, a blog and audiobooks. However he died of brain cancer in Fécamp on July 24, 2011, almost 20 years after his cancer diagnosis.
One of his last blogs was on the link between cell phones and cancer.
David Servan-Schreiber was the eldest son of the late French journalist, author and politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber.